Kira woke to the sound of breathing.
Not her own. She had learned to recognize her own breath in the dark, the rhythm of it, the way it changed when she was afraid. This was different. This was heavier. Faster.
She lay still on her cot, her hand moving to the dagger under her pillow. The room was dark. The fire in the main room had burned down to embers and the only light came from a thin crack of moon through the shuttered window. It was not enough to see, but she did not need to see.
The breathing came from across the room, from Eva's cot.
Kira had never heard Eva make a sound in her sleep before. Eva slept like a soldier, still and silent, her body barely seeming to breathe at all. Tonight was different.
The breathing hitched. Then a low sound, almost a groan, cut off before it could finish.
Kira sat up slowly. Her feet touched the cold stone floor. She held her breath and listened.
A rustle of blankets. A sharp exhale. Then Eva's voice, thick and strange, not quite a whisper. "Hold."
Kira froze.
"Hold the line."
The words were clear but distant, like Eva was speaking from somewhere far away. Her voice had none of its usual sharpness. It was raw, strained.
Kira rose from her cot and took a step toward Eva. The floor was cold under her bare feet. She could see the shape of Eva now, a darker shadow against the dark, her body twisted in the blankets. Her head moved side to side on the thin pillow.
"Don't," Eva muttered. "Don't ask."
Kira stopped. She did not know what to do. She had never seen Eva like this. She had never seen Eva weak at all.
The blankets shifted again. Eva's hand clenched the edge of her cot, the knuckles pale even in the dim light. Her breathing came faster, harder, like she was running.
Then she went still.
Completely still. The kind of stillness that felt wrong, like holding breath underwater. Kira waited, counting heartbeats. One. Two. Three.
Eva did not move. Her breathing slowed. Her hand relaxed on the blanket.
The nightmare had passed. Or maybe it had just begun. Kira could not tell.
She stood there for a long moment, watching the shape of Eva in the dark. Then she stepped back to her own cot and sat down on the edge. She did not lie back down. She stayed sitting, her dagger in her lap, watching the shadows shift as the moon moved across the window.
She did not sleep again that night.
In the morning, Eva was already dressed when Kira opened her eyes. She stood by the shuttered window, her back to the room, her arms crossed. Her hair was damp, like she had splashed water on her face.
Kira sat up. Her neck ached from sleeping sitting against the wall.
Eva turned. Her face was the same as always. Unreadable. Controlled. There was no trace of the night before, no shadow under her eyes, no hint that anything had happened.
"You look tired," Eva said.
Kira almost laughed. "I didn't sleep well."
Eva nodded. She did not ask why. She never asked.
"Get dressed," she said. "We need supplies. Bread, salt, a lock for the door. The market opens soon."
She turned back to the window, her gaze fixed on something outside that Kira could not see.
Kira stood and pulled on her boots. She wanted to say something. She wanted to ask about the words in the dark, but she looked at Eva's back, at the straight line of her shoulders, and she kept her mouth shut.
Some things, she had learned, were not for asking.
She followed Eva out of the back room and into the main room. The fire was already rebuilt, crackling in the hearth. A pot of water hung over the flames, just beginning to steam.
Eva had been awake for a while.
Kira said nothing. She sat by the fire and waited for the water to boil. She did not mention the nightmare, but she did not forget it either.
Later that night, after they had bought supplies and installed the new lock and eaten a meal of stale bread and thin stew, Kira lay on her cot and listened.
The room was dark again. Eva's breathing was slow and even. Asleep. Or pretending to be.
Kira closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But in the space between wakefulness and dreaming, she heard it again.
Eva's breath changed. It grew faster. Heavier.
And then, so quiet that Kira almost missed it, Eva spoke.
"No."
A single word. Small. Almost childlike.
Then silence.
Kira lay still, her eyes open in the dark, and she wondered what kind of past made a woman like Eva say "no" like that in her sleep.
She did not ask in the morning. She never asked.
But she started watching Eva differently after that. Looking for the cracks. The ones Eva worked so hard to hide.
Eva dreamed.
She stood in light armor, the leather cold and stiff against her skin. Her breath came in hard bursts. Her fingers flexed at her sides, checking for weapons that were not there yet. She would make them when she needed them.
A field stretched ahead of her, churned into mud by thousands of boots. Rain fell hard, soaking everything, turning the ground into a trap. It plastered her hair to her cheeks and ran down the back of her neck. She blinked it away.
Beyond the rain, the enemy waited.
A huge army. Shields locked together like a wall of iron. Spears lowered, rows of them, the tips glinting even in the gray light. They did not shout. They did not move. They just stood there, silent and patient, waiting for her to come.
Eva's heart pounded, but her hands were steady.
"Hold the line!" a voice shouted. Vance. Younger. No gray in his beard. His face not yet worn down by years. He was somewhere behind her, shouting at the soldiers who had not yet broken. "Hold, damn you!"
Eva did not hold.
She ran.
Others ran with her. Soldiers in mismatched armor, the leftovers of three broken companies. Men and women who had decided they would rather die on their feet than on their knees. Their boots pounded the mud. Their war cries tore through the rain. Some of them screamed names. Wives. Children. Gods that had stopped listening.
Eva did not scream. She saved her breath for running.
The enemy braced. The front rank knelt, planting their shields. The second rank raised their spears over the shields. The third rank readied arrows.
Eva reached the front line just as a spear thrust toward her chest. She threw her hand up. A shield snapped into existence. Solidified mana. Clear as glass, with faint gold veins running through it. The spear shattered against it. The shield held.
She slammed the shield forward into the soldier in front of her. The impact threw him backward into his own men. The formation broke. A gap opened.
Eva stepped through.
The shield dissolved. A halberd formed in her hands, its edge humming. She swung. The blade caught a soldier across the chest. He fell. She stepped over him and swung again. Cut, moved, and another fell.
She did not think. Thinking meant slowing and slowing meant dying. Her body knew what to do. A sword came from the left. She parried with a mana-blade that appeared just in time. A spear came from the right. She dropped low, spun, and her own spear took the wielder in the knee. He went down screaming.
She made weapons as she needed them. A sword for close work. A shield for arrows. A halberd for reach. Each one lasted only moments before she dissolved it and made something else. The mana flowed through her, endless, obedient.
At first, her movements were fluid, almost beautiful. A dance she had practiced a thousand times in training yards and on empty fields. Block, strike, move. Block, strike, move. The bodies piled up around her.
Then the exhaustion hit.
Her arms grew heavy. Her lungs burned. The gaps between weapons got shorter. She stopped making elegant tools and started making whatever would kill the fastest. A jagged blade that needed no skill, just weight. A heavy club that crushed armor instead of piercing it. A spike of condensed force that she drove through shields like a ram.
The fighting turned dirty, straightforward, desperate.
A cut on her arm. She felt the sting but did not look. A bruise on her ribs from a shield bash. A gash across her thigh that burned with every step. She kept moving anyway. If she stopped, she would not start again.
Around her, the soldiers who had charged with her fell, one by one. She did not notice. She could not afford to notice. There was only the next enemy, the next swing, the next breath. The mud was red now. The rain was red. Everything was red.
Time stopped meaning anything.
Then, suddenly, there were no more enemies in front of her.
Eva straightened. Her halberd dripped mud and blood. Her armor hung in shreds. Her arms shook. She tried to lift the halberd again, but it was too heavy. She let it dissolve. The mana flowed back into her chest, tired but still there.
She looked around.
Bodies everywhere. Most wore the enemy's colors. Gray and black, now brown with mud and dark with blood. Some wore her own. Faded blues and greens, the colors of companies that no longer existed. The ground was so churned and soaked that she could not tell where mud ended and blood began.
The remaining enemy soldiers were running. Their backs turned to her. They dropped their shields as they ran. They threw away their spears. They just wanted to be anywhere else.
Behind her, someone shouted. Then another voice. Then a dozen.
"Commander Vance! Commander Vance!"
Eva turned. Her legs almost gave out. She caught herself on a broken spear stuck upright in the mud.
Vance picked his way through the carnage, his sword still drawn, his face pale under the mud. He stepped over bodies. He stepped around them. His boots left deep prints in the soaked ground. He stopped when he reached her.
His eyes went to her wounds. To the bodies around her. To the impossible fact that she was still standing.
"You saved us," he said. His voice was hoarse. He had been shouting for hours.
Eva looked at him. The rain ran down her face. She tasted blood on her lips. Not hers. Someone else's.
"Don't ask," she said.
Her voice came out flat. Final. There was no room in it for argument.
Vance stared at her for a long moment. The rain kept falling. Somewhere behind them, a man was crying. Another was laughing.
Then Vance nodded. He did not ask.
Eva turned away from him. She walked into the rain, her footsteps heavy on the broken ground. Her thigh screamed with every step. Her arm hung limp at her side. She did not stop.
Behind her, the cheers continued. They called Vance's name. They called for medics. They called for their mothers.
Eva did not look back.
Eva woke with a gasp.
Kira heard it from across the room. She had been lying still, eyes open, listening to the uneven rhythm of Eva's breathing. She had heard the murmurs. The name. Vance. The words that did not make sense. Now Eva was awake, and the room was silent except for the sound of her pulling air into her lungs.
Kira did not move. She kept her breathing slow and even, the way she had learned to pretend to sleep when she was small and her parents argued by the fire. She watched through half closed eyes as Eva sat up on the cot.
Eva's hand went to her throat, then to her ribs, then to her thigh, pressing hard, like she was checking for wounds that were not there.
She sat like that for a long time. Her head bowed, her shoulders rising and falling with each breath.
Kira had never seen Eva look small before, but sitting there in the dark, her hair tangled, her hands shaking, she looked almost like a normal person. She almost like someone who could be hurt.
Then Eva stood. She walked to the window and pushed the shutter open a crack. Moonlight fell across her face. Her eyes were gold and empty, staring out at the dark town.
She did not look at Kira.
Kira closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. She heard Eva move to the main room. She heard the clink of the kettle being set on the hearth. She heard the soft scrape of flint on steel.
She did not follow. Some things were not for sharing.
In the morning, Eva was already dressed. She stood by the hearth, stirring something in a pot. The fire had been rebuilt, the room was warm.
Kira sat up and rubbed her eyes. She did not mention the night before. She did not ask about the gasping, the shaking, the way Eva had pressed her ribs like she expected to find blood.
Eva handed her a bowl of porridge. It was thin and bland, but it was hot.
"We need to check the basement today," Eva said. Her voice was normal. Flat. Controlled. "The floor needs leveling before we can train on it."
Kira nodded and ate her porridge. She watched Eva over the rim of the bowl. There were dark circles under Eva's eyes, barely visible in the morning light. Her hands were steady now.
"Did you sleep well?" Kira asked.
Eva looked at her. For a moment, something flickered across her face. Surprise, maybe. Or suspicion. Then it was gone.
"Well enough," she said.
Kira did not push. She finished her porridge and stood up. "I'll get the broom."
She walked to the closet where they kept the cleaning supplies. As she passed Eva, she stopped. Just for a second. She wanted to say something, something like "I heard you" or "You don't have to be alone" or "I have nightmares too."
But she did not know how to say those words. She had never learned.
So she kept walking.
They spent the morning in the basement. Eva used a spell to flatten the packed earth floor, pressing it down until it was hard and smooth. Kira swept the dust into piles and carried it up the stairs in an old sack.
They did not talk much, but the silence was not uncomfortable. It was the silence of two people who had both seen things they could not unsee, and who understood that some words were too heavy to carry.
At midday, they stopped to eat. Kira sat on the steps, a piece of bread in her hand. Eva stood by the basement door, looking down at the floor she had made.
"This will work," Eva said. "For training."
Kira nodded. "What will we train first?"
Eva was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Control. Always control."
Kira thought about the night before, about the words Eva had spoken in her sleep.
"Eva," Kira said.
Eva looked at her.
Kira opened her mouth then closed it. The words were there, right there, but she could not make them come out.
"Never mind," she said.
Eva studied her for a long moment. Then she nodded.
Kira sat on the steps and finished her bread. The afternoon light came through the cracked windows, warm and gold. Outside, the town made its usual noise. Miners shouting, carts rattling, a dog barking somewhere.
Inside, there was only the sound of Eva's boots on the packed earth floor, and the quiet hum of Kira's wall holding steady in her chest.
She did not ask about the nightmare, not that day, not the next.
She started paying attention to the way Eva never slept more than a few hours, to the way she always positioned herself facing the door, to the way she flinched, just slightly, when someone touched her from behind.
Kira knew those habits. She had them too.
They were the habits of people who had survived things that should have killed them.
And Kira wondered, for the first time, what Eva had survived to become the woman she was.
She did not ask, but she hoped that someday, Eva would tell her.